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Nokia Xpress steams in with iPhone killer
Touchscreen and Qwerty

By Kent German

Published: Friday 03 October 2008

While LG and Samsung were quick to play their touchscreen phone cards after the release of the first iPhone, Nokia has been holding its hand close. That is, until now. On Thursday, the Finnish company announced the Nokia 5800 Xpress Music, an eye-catching slim touchscreen phone that looks vaguely like you-know-what. Though Nokia is quick to dismiss the iPhone comparisons, they are obvious and analysts across the board are making them.

On the outside there's an expansive 3.2-inch touchscreen with tactile feedback that serves as the primary interface tool. There are also three physical buttons - Talk and End keys and a menu control - but this device is all about getting touchy-feely. The outside is mostly black but you'll be able to exercise a bit of personal style by choosing from three versions - each has a thin coloured ring in either grey, red or blue. Exterior controls include a volume rocker, a dedicated power button and a camera shutter.

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Features are more like the LG Dare than the iPhone. Inside you'll find a 3.2-megapixel camera with video recording and a Carl Zeiss lens, messaging, stereo Bluetooth, a microSD card slot, 81MB of internal memory, USB mass storage, personal organiser apps, a speakerphone, a 3.5mm headset jack, assisted GPS, a music player and PC syncing. It's also a full world phone with support for four GSM bands and two HSDPA bands.

When it comes to music, besides the traditional methods of syncing with a PC (via Windows Media Player 11) or transferring songs via Bluetooth or a memory card, you'll also be able to access songs over the air from Nokia's music store using the company's new Comes With Music service.

The main menu uses a series of icons, while the music player features album art. An accelerometer will rotate the display from portrait to landscape mode automatically; in landscape mode there's a full Qwerty keyboard.

The 5800 comes with a stylus and a secondary tool that looks like a guitar. Nokia says the latter tool is designed for use with the music player. You'll get a wired headset in the box as well but Bluetooth can use one of the new headsets that the company also introduced Thursday.

The 5800 Xpress Music should land in Europe and Asia in the last quarter of this year.